@kevinal 150835 wrote:
When you say that the Pentagon does “a VERY good job of clearing” the snow, does that mean that you can ride a bike on the cleared paths? I’ve also noticed the orange poles along the bike paths and assumed that someone has a plan to keep them clear this year. However, I wonder whether it’s really possible to remove ice and snow off a bike path well enough to make for a reasonably comfortable and worry-free ride. I remember trying to commute a time or two last year when the MVT was more or less cleared, and both times I turned back home; between the hidden ice and the patches of uncleared snow, the ride was jarring, treacherous, and not worth the effort.
The pentagon grounds crew does an incredible job keeping the trail on its border along 27 plowed and salted. Sometimes there’s so much salt down it’s like riding on loose gravel which is ironically a bit sketchy in itself.
The problem is that their clearing efforts end immediately after the dangerous access road entrance crossings connecting 27 to the north parking lot, leaving all connections between there and the MVT/memorial bridge as untamed wildlands. And then the road snow plows come through and push/dump ice chunks and road debris all over the previously cleared sidewalks and bridge pathways adjacent to the road anyways. I spent a couple years just walking my bike over the worst patches but I don’t bother going that way anymore.
